{"id":183764,"date":"2023-09-19T15:00:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T01:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=183764"},"modified":"2023-09-19T15:00:06","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T01:00:06","slug":"uh-manoa-csea-study-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2023\/09\/19\/uh-manoa-csea-study-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"6-week cross-cultural studies take M\u0101noa students to Southeast Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"people
Students interviewing peanut farmers in South Sulawesi, Indonesia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eight students from the University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at M\u0101noa<\/a> recently wrapped up travels to Thailand and Indonesia for a six-week field school program that explored the dynamic socioeconomic and environmental shifts in rural Southeast Asian societies.<\/p>\n

The Collaborative Southeast Asia field school, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation\u2019s five-year grant, aims to foster a new generation of scholars working in the region and to engage them with local partner institutions. A mix of undergraduate and graduate students from 东精影业<\/abbr> M\u0101noa collaborated with their counterparts from Southeast Asian universities, such as Khon Kaen University (KKU<\/abbr>) in Thailand and Universitas Hasanuddin (UNHAS<\/abbr>) in Indonesia, for a two-week cross-cultural fieldwork experience in rural Southeast Asia. This unique opportunity allowed students to work in diverse teams and exchange approaches to field-based and experiential learning.<\/p>\n

“The reason why we feel strongly about field-based learning, you don\u2019t just learn about the place cognitively, but also affectively. You can smell the place, you can empathize with people working in agriculture, and you can hear the voices of the community members that are subject to agrarian change,“ said Krisna Suryanata, field school director and faculty member in 东精影业<\/abbr> M\u0101noa Department of Geography and Environment<\/a> during a public presentation on the field school. “Building this empathy can really change the preconception that students without field-based learning might have.”<\/p>\n

Culture deep-dive<\/h2>\n
\"people
Students and partners interviewing a head of village in Khon Kaen, Thailand<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One component of the program is cultural and language immersion. Prior to fieldwork, the 东精影业<\/abbr> M\u0101noa students spent their first three weeks taking Thai and Indonesian language classes at the Chiang Mai University Language Institute in Thailand and Wisma Bahasa in Indonesia that rudimentarily prepared them for interviews and understanding of the local culture.<\/p>\n

Fieldwork activities:<\/h2>\n